The two religious characteristics associated with peace are LOW government restrictions on religious behavior and LOW social hostilities involving religion. In addition, countries with higher religious diversity are, on average, more peaceful and have less restrictions on or social hostilities involving religion than countries with religious monopolies.

The impact of government restrictions on and socialhostilities involving religion can be seen by looking at government type, which is a key driver of peace.

Source: IEP, PEW, EIU

GOVERNMENT TYPEAs governments are further away from being a full democracy (see chart), religious hostilities and government restrictions on religious freedom are more severe. The trend holds true across the board, although, because of the repressive nature of authoritarian regimes, such regimes hold down social hostilities more than hybrid and flawed democracies because of the often overwhelming force used to control any social opposition or political dissent.

Full democracies have the best average performance in peace, and the lowest levels of religious restrictions and religious hostilities. Less regulation of religion reduces the grievances of religions, and also decreases the ability of any single religion to wield undue political power (also see The Price of Freedom Denied). Full democracies outperform every other government type. Full democracies are on average 58% more peaceful, have 131% less religious restrictions and 49% less religious hostility than authoritarian regimes. Authoritarian regimes have the worst performance in peace and unsurprisingly in religious restrictions. However, authoritarian regimes are the second best performing government type on the Social Hostilities Index, reflecting the ‘enforced peace’ that can occur in some authoritarian contexts. Every full democracy, except the US, is amongst the 50 most peaceful countries in the world. Full democracies have disproportionately higher levels of non-believers than other forms of government. However, the overall proportions of atheists are generally very low and are therefore incapable of creating a strong influence on the factors that affect peace. Full democracies are peaceful regardless of the levels of religious belief.

RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY

Countries that are more religiously diverse - that is, without a dominant religious group - have, on average, higher levels of peace and less government restrictions towards religion. They also have lower levels of religious hostilities. In this study, a dominant religious group means there is more than 60% of the population identifying as followers of a particular belief system or denomination.

Countries without a dominant religious group are on average 17% more peaceful than countries with a dominant religious group. Similarly, countries without a dominant religious group have on average 25% less religious restrictions and 40% lower religious hostilities.

The presence of mulitple religions in a country appears to have a pacifying effect if they are free of restrictions. Alternatively, if the members of a religious group dominates and “achieves a monopoly”, they are likely to be able to access and use the power of the state. What has been seen in the past is that dominant religious groups with state power are open to persecute other religious groups and competitors.

The bloody conflict of ISIS in northern Iraq is not a Sunni-Shia conflict, but rather the ultra-extremist Sunni Islamic State trying to enforce its intolerant vision on all Muslims and non-Muslims alike, regardless of sectarian identity. And despite the apparent role of Sunni and Shia sectarian violence in parts of the Middle East today, when reviewed globally, countries with high proportions of Sunni and Shia are not necessarily violent or plagued with conflict, according to a report by the Institute for Economics and Peace carried out in conjunction with the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation.

Iran also has a similar proportional breakdown, except it has a Shia instead of Sunni majority. This suggests the religious demographic breakdown is not necessarily a deterministic factor to peace. Similarly, there are differing peace levels for countries where Sunni and Shia have similar proportions of a population. Bahrain is significantly more peaceful than other countries with a similar proportional Sunni/Shia split such as Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. There are many relatively peaceful countries which have a significant proportion of Sunni and Shia.

However, it is important to note that based on a perception survey from Pew Research the Sunni and Shia divide is considered significant by Muslims with 73% of countries with significant numbers of Muslims believing that friction between religious groups is a moderately or very big problem for their country. Undoubtedly, sectarian violence has been a major feature of armed conflict in the Middle East today. This is evidenced by the fact that when countries with majority Muslim populations have engaged in armed conflict it is generally civil or inter-religious conflict. Indeed, the twenty-first century has not been marked by the clash of civilisations but rather intra-group conflict. Of the 15 armed conflicts motivated in part by Islamist groups in 2013, all but 5 occurred in countries where Muslims were in the majority.Religious restrictions do not correlate very strongly with peace at only 0.24, whereas religious hostilities do at 0.61. This suggests that for the majority of Muslim countries government restrictions towards religion has less of an impact on peace than religious hostilities do. 70% of Muslim-majority countries are authoritarian regimes, with 23% hybrid regimes. There are only three flawed democracies, and no full democracies. As such it is unsurprising that Muslim-majority countries have high levels of government restrictions.

What distinguishes Muslim-majority countries is differing performance in the Pillars of Peace, a framework developed by IEP to assess the positive peace factors that create peaceful societies. Specifically, countries that have lower corruption, well-functioning government and better relations with neighbors are more peaceful regardless of the particular levels of Sunni and Shia.

The Pillars of Peace provide an insight into what features differentiate the peace performance of countries with high levels of Sunni and Shia. Three of the 8 Pillars of Peace correlate with the GPI for the most Muslim countries.

Well-Functioning Government

Based on several factors, from how governments are elected and the political culture they engender, to the quality of the public services they deliver and their political stability. Strong relationships across a number of these indicators and sub-indicators demonstrate the interdependent nature of the various governance indicators. These measures are consistently linked to peace.

Good Relations with Neighbors

Refers to the relations between individuals and communities as well as to cross-border relations. Countries with positive external relations are more peaceful and tend to be more politically stable, have better functioning governments, are regionally integrated and have low levels of organized internal conflict.

Low Levels of Corruption

In societies with high corruption resources are inefficiently allocated, making business inefficient and often leading to a lack of funding for essential services. The resulting inequality can lead to civil unrest and in extreme situations can be the catalyst for more violence. Low levels of corruption, by contrast, can enhance business confidence and trust in institutions, which in turn helps to create informal institutions that enhance peace.

The most peaceful countries are a mixture of both religious and less religious countries. For instance, 3 out of the 10 most peaceful countries in the 2013 GPI are more religious than the international average. At the other end of the scale 2 out of the 10 least peaceful countries have some of the lowest rates of religion attendance in the world, notably North Korea.

Countries with more atheists are not more peaceful. The countries with the first and third highest percentage of atheists, North Korea and Russia, performed in the bottom ten for the 2013 GPI. If a country has greater than five per cent of its population as atheist then it’s likely to be either a communist or former communist state or from Europe. Of the 10 most peaceful countries in the 2013 GPI, only 2 countries have greater than 10% atheists. These countries are New Zealand with around 32% and Belgium at approximately 20%.Rather than religious similarities, the least peaceful countries have political and regional similarities. The least peaceful countries are on average authoritarian countries and are located in the three least peaceful regions in the world: the Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. For example, Malaysia is considerably more peaceful than neighboring country Myanmar. A major difference between these countries is that Malaysia is more democratic, whereas Myanmar is in its early stages of its democratization process. The government type therefore, appears to be a more significant distinguishing characteristic of peace, with full democracies and especially member states of the European Union having the best measures in peace, regardless of the levels of religion beliefs.

Source: IEP, World Religion Project

Over two thirds of countries in the world greater than 95% of the population hold religious beliefs and high levels of religious belief can be found at either end of the GPI. Countries with the highest presence of religious belief also have vast differences in peace.

There is not a significant correlation between levels of religious belief and peace, with an r=0.14. Generally IEP considers a measure of at least r=0.5 to be significant. All correlations in Table 2 are extremely low, to the extent that no relationship was uncovered. Furthermore, the results are in divergent directions meaning that a linear connection between the presence of religion and peace is highly unlikely. While 15 of the 20 most peaceful countries in the world have less religion than the international average, it does not follow that all peaceful countries have low religious levels. Iceland, for example, is the most peaceful country in the 2013 GPI but has relatively high levels of religious belief. In fact, 11 of the top 20 countries on the GPI have more than 90% of their population identifying with religious beliefs. The overwhelming majority of people in most countries, including the most peaceful, have religious attendance rates of over 80%. Atheists are a small minority globally, and only a majority in five of the 162 countries analyzed, thereby limiting any explanatory effect on a society as a whole.

While religion has evidently been a cause of many conflicts throughout history, it is by no means the only reason for conflict. Surveying the state of 35 armed conflicts from 2013, religious elements did not play a role in 14, or 40%.

It is notable that religion did not stand as a single cause in any conflict; however 14% of conflicts did have religion and/or the establishment of an Islamic state as driving causes. Religion was only one of three or more reasons for 67% of the conflicts where religion featured as a factor to the conflict.

Nevertheless, global peace as measured by the Global Peace Index (GPI) has been steadily deteriorating over the last seven years; with 111 countries deteriorating and 51 improving. One of the main reasons for the global decline in peace has been increased terrorist activity, which has been driven by high profile Islamic terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State (IS), Boko Haram and Al-Qaida. Both the scale and the intensity of terrorism has substantially increased. In 2011, 13 countries recorded more than 50 deaths from terrorist activity; by 2013 the number had jumped to 24 countries.

The graph represents the causes of conflict for the 35 armed conflicts in 2013. Of the 35 conflicts in 2013, 86% had more than one cause. Nearly two-thirds of conflicts in 2013 had among their main cause opposition to a particular government, or opposition to the economic, ideological, political or social system of a state. Identity was a feature in most conflicts in 2013, with 21 conflicts involving clashes of identity as a main cause of conflict. When analyzing the motivation for these conflicts the desire for identity and self-government was a part of 60 per cent of the conflicts. While religious elements may have a significant impact, there are many other motivators of armed conflict.

There are many difficulties in simplistically determining what the causes of a conflict are. Conflicts with religious elements are not necessarily primarily driven by religious objectives or identification. In many instances armed groups focused more on overthrowing the government or eroding government power and use religion as a rallying cry in religious societies. It has been argued that religion is rarely a foundational cause for conflict. It “does not ordinarily lead to violence”, but it is generally only “when religion becomes fused with violent expressions of social tensions, personal pride, and movements for political change.”

When parties to a conflict are divided on religious adherence, the conflict often becomes framed as religious even though the parties have originally fought over other issues. As the majority of people in the world adhere to some religious beliefs it is unsurprising that many conflicts are interpreted as having a religious element. It thus does not always follow that religion is the cause for conflict.

As the possibility of U.S. military intervention in Syria mounts in response to the alleged use of chemical weapons by the regime of Basheer Assad, Pope Francis calls for prayer and fasting for peace. Pope Francis encouraged people to gather on Sept. 7 from 7 PM until midnight in St Peter’s Square, and also invited non-Catholics to participate in ways they feel are appropriate, according to Vatican Radio.

Last week, U.S. President Barack Obama laid out the case for limited military action against Syrian regime targets as a result of their alleged use of chemical weapons that killed over one thousand people - including hundreds of children. Syrian authorities deny their involvement and, in a BBC interview, said that any US military action against Syria would amount to "support for al-Qaeda and its affiliates."

As the tensions continue to mount in the two-year civil war that began during the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, here are three things to know about religion and religious freedom in Syria from recent Pew Research studies.

1. Syria is more religiously diverse than you might think

Shia Muslims account for 15-20% of Muslims

Syria's 2010 population was slightly more than 20 million, with Muslims accounting for 93% (19 million), Christians 5% (1 million) and the religiously unaffiliated 2% (.4 million), according to Pew Research estimates.

While Syria's population is largely Muslim, Sunni and Shia Muslim communities contribute to its diversity. By comparison, Egypt is less diverse because its Muslim population is almost entirely Sunni, while Christians make up a similar share according to Pew Research estimates. (See more about Egypt.)

Sunni Muslims in Syria number between 15-16 million, while Shia Muslims, mostly belonging to the Alawite sect, number between 3-4 million. Although the Alawites are a numerical minority, they control many of the mechanisms of power within the country. According to the U.S. State Department, for instance, the "Alawi sect, of which President Assad and his family are members, continued to hold an elevated political status disproportionate to its numbers, including in the military and other security services."

Among Christians, approximately 590,000 are Orthodox, 430,000 are Catholic and 40,000 belong to various Protestant denominations. Syria is famous in Christian history for being the location of St. Paul's conversion in Aleppo.

2. The Syrian civil war has increasingly fallen along sectarian lines, threatening Majorities and Minorities alike

A June 2013 Pew Research report noted that the ongoing civil war in Syria, which began as a protest against the regime of President Assad, now falls largely along sectarian lines. There are also some indications that the sectarian dimensions of the conflict have spilled across borders. For instance, Hezbollah - a Shia Muslim group designated as a terrorist organization by several governments - reportedly crossed into Syria from Lebanon to join the ongoing civil war on the side of the regime led by President Assad. The coalition of rebel forces seeking to topple the regime, however, is largely Sunni Muslim.

Smaller religious minorities are also caught up in the Syrian conflict. For instance, in April two Orthodox Christian bishops were kidnapped by gunmen in Aleppo, Syria. They are still being held. And, as noted by the Wall Street Journal, ancient Catholic and Orthodox communities are finding themselves on the wrong side of an increasingly sectarian conflict, threatening their very survival. Indeed, reports indicate that the uncertain future of Syrian Christians is one shared by many historic Christian communities across the Middle East.

3. Syria has among the world's highest government restrictions on religion

Syria has among the highest levels of government restrictions on religion, ranking 9th most restrictive worldwide, according to the most recent Pew Research report. Government restrictions in Syria included active use of force against religious groups; very high favoritism of Shia Islam above others; prohibitions on Muslims converting from Islam to other religions; and restrictions on religious literature or broadcasting.

In particular, the Syrian "government increased its targeting and surveillance of members of faith groups it deemed a threat, including members of the country’s Sunni majority," according to the U.S.State Department.

For a discussion on the association between social hostilities and government restrictions, see my TEDx Talk.

Egyptian government forces stormed a mosque in central Cairo where scores of Muslim Brotherhood members and supporters of ousted Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, sheltered.

At the same time, "scores of churches across Egypt have come under attack since the assault on the two protest camps, highlighting Egypt’s sectarian divisions and reflecting a belief among some supporters of Mr. Morsi that Egyptian Christians are in some way to blame for his ouster," reports the New York Times.

The AP photo shows the damaged interior of the Saint Moussa Church a day after it was torched in sectarian violence following the dispersal of two Cairo sit-ins of supporters of Morsi, in Minya, south of Cairo, Egypt, Thursday, Aug. 15, 2013. News reports suggest that last week's violence may have left some 700 dead, more than one thousand arrested, and many more injured. Recent Pew Research studies provide insights into 5 things about Egypt that help put recent events in context.

1. The deaths and injuries reported approach the threshold of religion-related armed conflict

The June 2013 Pew Research study on religious restrictions and hostilities had already counted the violence during and after the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 in Egypt as religion-related armed conflict. If recent reports of deaths and injuries are accurate, the conflict pitting the security forces against supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi approach the threshold of religion-related armed conflict used in the Pew Research study.

According to the study, religion-related war is defined as "armed conflict (involving sustained casualties over time or more than 1,000 battle deaths) in which religious rhetoric is commonly employed to justify the use of force, or in which one or more of the combatants primarily identifies itself or the opposing side by religion."

2. Government restrictions on religion in Egypt are associated with higher levels of social hostilities

A study by the Pew Research Center finds that - on average - social hostilities involving religion are 3.5 times higher in countries with very high government favoritism of religion than in countries with low levels of favoritism (click on chart). And, when more than 200 people are affected by government force toward religion, this coincides with 4.7 times higher levels of social hostilities involving religion. The violence this past week appears to have have crossed that threshold.

Although the government of ousted Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, made moves to favor Islam more highly than before, government favoritism of Islam in Egypt was already very high. For instance, the government prohibits - and has prohibited - Muslims from converting to any other religion, and Islamic law was already enshrined in the constitution as a source of legislation for the country long before Morsi came to power.

Moreover, a previous Pew Research report covering the pre-Morsi period noted that government restrictions in Egypt were very high and that "many of the restrictions in Egypt were directed at Coptic Christians, who form one of the largest Christian populations in the Middle East and North Africa."

3. Sectarian violence - as occurs in Egypt - is strongly associated with high government restrictions

Sectarian violence in Egypt is not a new phenomenon, but it appears to be on the rise. For instance, prior to last week's violence, Al-Jazeera reported that confrontations between Muslims and Copts have increased in Egypt since the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in 2011. And Amnesty International reported on a recent increase in tensions in Wasta (about one hundred kilometers south of Cairo), highlighting the vulnerability of Egypt’s Coptic Christians, the largest religious minority in the country.

The violence by and toward the Muslim Brotherhood, however, is also a form of communal violence within the Muslim population, pitting those supporting a more Islamist approach against other Muslims in the country.

Among the various forms of social hostilities involving religion, sectarian or communal violence between religious groups has the strongest association with government restrictions on religion. The average level of government restrictions among the countries with sectarian violence (GRI = 5.0) is much higher than among countries without such violence (2.4), as shown in the chart (click to enlarge).

See my TEDx Talk for more on the association between government restrictions and social hostilities.

4. Egypt's Christian population, while the largest in the Middle East, may be smaller than often reported

No nation in the Middle East-North Africa region has a larger Christian community than Egypt. Though media reports sometimes suggest that Christians make up 10% or more of Egypt’s population of approximately 80 million people, census and survey data analyzed for a recent Pew Research report indicate that Egypt’s Christian population is about half that size. The study finds that there are 4.3 million Christians in Egypt — more than in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Syria combined. Nine-in-ten Egyptian Christians are Orthodox Christian. Most Christians in Egypt belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church, which is an Oriental Orthodox church. (See Defining Christian Traditions.)

Census and demographic survey data suggest that the Christian share of Egypt’s total population has been declining. The highest share reported in the past century was in 1927, when the census found that 8.3% of Egyptians were Christian. In each of the eight subsequent censuses, the Christian share of the population gradually shrank. The most recent census, in 2006, found that about 5% of the population was Christian. The Pew Forum’s 2011 report on the global Muslim population estimated that approximately 95% of Egyptians were Muslim in 2010.Although Egypt’s Christian population is overwhelmingly Orthodox, other Christian denominations and movements have a significant presence in the country. For example, there are an estimated 140,000 Egyptian Catholics and more than 250,000 Egyptian Protestants. Evangelical, pentecostal and charismatic movements have influenced Protestantism in Egypt, leading, for example, to the formation of the Coptic Evangelical Organization for Social Services, founded by evangelical layman Samuel Habib in 1950 to promote community development.

5. Egypt stands out among Muslim-majority countries as having low tolerance of religious pluralism

While Egypt is home to some of the most intense government restrictions on religion, these restrictions are coupled with a Muslim public that is considerably less tolerant of religious pluralism than Muslims elsewhere, according to a recent Pew Research analysis.

The analysis of public opinion polling conducted in Egypt in November-December 2011 shows that many Egyptian Muslims recognize the lack of religious freedom in their society. The analysis noted the following:

When asked whether they are very free, somewhat free, not too free or not at all free to practice their religion, fewer than half of Egyptian Muslims (46%) answer “very free.” Fewer still think non-Muslims in Egypt are very free to practice their faith (31%). By contrast, a median of 78% of Muslims across the 39 countries polled in Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia, say they are very free to practice their religion, and 73% say non-Muslims in their country are free to practice their faith.

Overall, about one-in-five Muslims in Egypt (18%) describe non-Muslims as not too free or not at all free to practice their religion. However, Egyptian Muslims are not necessarily troubled by this perceived lack of religious freedom: Two-thirds of those who say non-Muslims in Egypt are not too free or not all free to practice their faith say this is a good thing.

Like many Muslim publics surveyed around the world, a majority of Egyptian Muslims (74%) want sharia, or Islamic law, enshrined as the official law of the land. However, Egypt is one of the few countries where a clear majority (74%) of sharia supporters say both Muslims and non-Muslims in their country should be subject to Islamic law. Worldwide, a median of 39% of Muslims who favor enshrining Islamic law say sharia should apply to Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

Egyptian Muslims also back criminalizing apostasy, or leaving Islam for another religion. An overwhelming majority of Egyptian Muslims (88%), say converting away from Islam should be punishable by death. Among the 37 countries where the question was asked, a median of 28% of Muslims say apostates should be subject to the death penalty.

Cross-border religious hostilities include Lebanon's Hezbollah joining the fight in neighboring Syria as well as Hezbollah reportedly having an armory a continent away in northern Nigeria

New Hezbollah activities outside Lebanon

This past week, Hezbollah - a Shia Muslim group designated as a terrorist organization by several governments - reportedly crossed into neighboring Syria to join the ongoing civil war on the side of the regime led by President Bashar al-Assad Assad, who is also affiliated with a Shia Muslim group, the Alawites. The coalition of rebel forces seeking to topple the regime, however, is largely Sunni Muslim.

Smaller religious minorities are also caught up in the Syrian conflict. For instance, in April two Orthodox Christian bishops were kidnapped by gunmen in Aleppo, Syria. Their whereabouts are still unknown. The recent entry of Lebanon's Hezbollah into the Syrian civil war is a fresh example of how religious hostilities cross borders. According to a Pew Research study, religion-related wars that had cross-border impact affected nearly one-in-ten countries (8%) worldwide between 2009-2011, the most recent years for which data are available.

But Hezbollah's activities can reach far beyond its own neighborhood. The BBC reports that an armory belonging to Hezbollah was discovered this past week in northern Nigeria, supposedly adding to tensions in the west African nation.

Worldwide, 62% of Countries Affected by Cross-National Religious Hostilities and Restrictions Considering a range of cross-border influences, the analysis by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life finds that between mid-2009 and 2011, influences from abroad were reported to have contributed to religious hostilities or restrictions in 122 of 198 countries, or 62% of all the countries and territories studied.

Social hostilities involving religion can cross international borders, as the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States and their aftermath made clear. More recent examples include the violent street protests that broke out in several Muslim-majority countries in early 2006 after a Danish newspaper published a dozen cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in September 2005, as well as rioting in northern India in 2009 after a group of Sikh radicals murdered a leader of a minority sect in a Sikh temple in Vienna, Austria, in 2009.

Recently, Michael Adebolajo -- the suspect in the murder of a British soldier Lee Rigby who was hacked to death on May 22 in a street in Woolwich, south-east London -- was arrested in Kenya in 2010 reportedly attempting to travel to Somalia to train with militants, which may have either played a role in his radicalization or was a cross-national manifestation of his already extremist views.

Government restrictions on religion also can have cross-national impacts or influences. In 2010, for instance, the governments of Singapore, Indonesia and several other countries limited at least some activities of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, reportedly in deference to China, which continues to ban the movement. And in 2012, a Saudi Arabian journalist who had been accused of blasphemy by Saudi authorities was extradited to Saudi Arabia by the Malaysian government. (For more on this incident, see my recent TEDx Talk, "The Numbers of Religious Freedom".)

The most common kinds of cross-national influences, in descending order of prevalence, were: tensions over the movement of people (primarily migrants) across international borders; the alleged spread of religious extremism; efforts by governments to influence religious affairs in other countries; religion-related terrorism with cross-border support or impacts; hostile reactions to events that happened or are alleged to have happened in other countries; and religion-related war or armed conflict. (Also see previous blog posts on cross-national religious hostilities and restrictions.)

Restrictions on religious freedom in North Korea - which external observers rate as among the world's most severe - cannot be rated by the Pew Research Center because independent, on-the-ground observers are kept out of Kim Jong-un's secretive regime.

While this is a testimony to the methodological integrity of Pew Research, such paucity of information makes it highly problematic to assess the situation as Kim's regime claims to "enter a state of war" with South Korea and, by extension, with the U.S.

Nevertheless, the sources used by the Pew Forum to assess restrictions on religion in 198 other countries clearly indicate that North Korea's government is among the most repressive in the world with respect to religion as well as other civil and political liberties.

What do the sources say?

The U.S. State Department's 2011 Report on International Religious Freedom, for example, says that "Genuine freedom of religion does not exist" in North Korea.

The International Crisis Group describes the godlike status of Kim Jong-un: North Korean propaganda refers to the Great Leader as the 'brain' for the 'national body.' "North Koreans are indoctrinated to believe that 'freedom and national independence' are only possible by submitting to and supporting the leader - even if it means sacrificing one’s own life."

Human Rights Watch states that the government "does not allow ... religious freedom. Arbitrary arrest, detention, lack of due process, and torture and ill-treatment of detainees remain serious and pervasive problems. North Korea also practices collective punishment for various anti-state offenses, for which it enslaves hundreds of thousands of citizens in prison camps, including children."

For instance, in one of the rare cases coming to international attention, Amnesty International reports that in June, 2010, Mrs. Ri Hyun-ok, 33 years old, was publicly executed in the north-western city of Ryongchon (near the border with China) on charges of distributing Bibles and espionage. Ri Hyun-ok's parents, husband and three children were sent to a political prison camp in the north-eastern city of Hoeryong.

According to Human Rights Without Frontiers, "North Korea totally lacks religious freedom. Its religious delegations are made up of government officials. This way, the regime can claim that 'religious pluralism' exists in the country."

Freedom House observes that freedom of religion does not exist in practice. "State-sanctioned churches maintain a token presence in Pyongyang. However, intense state indoctrination and repression preclude free exercise of religion."

And the 2012 report of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) concludes that in North Korea there "continue to be reports of severe religious freedom abuses ... including discrimination and harassment of both authorized and unauthorized religious activity; the arrest, torture, and possible execution of those conducting clandestine religious activity; and the mistreatment and imprisonment of asylum-seekers repatriated from China, particularly those suspected of engaging in religious activities, having religious affiliations, or possessing religious literature."

Photo: North Korean army officers punch the air as they chant slogans during a rally at Kim Il Sung Square in downtown Pyongyang, North Korea, Friday, March 29, 2013. Tens of thousands of North Koreans turned out for the mass rally at the main square in Pyongyang in support of their leader Kim Jong-un's call to arms.

A series of bombings struck Baghdad and towns south of the Iraqi capital on Thursday, killing and wounding scores in areas that are home to mostly Muslim Shiites — the latest evidence of rising sectarian discord in Iraq, according to the Associated Press. (In the AP photo, a victim of a bomb lies wounded at a hospital in Baghdad, Friday, March 1, 2013).

While violence in Iraq is down from its peak in 2006-2007, Al-Jazeera reports that attacks "fueled by sectarian and political unrest" occur on almost daily basis, including a string of bomb attacks across the country in recent months, according to the BBC. And on Sunday, the BBC also reports that explosions in a Muslim Shiite neighborhood of Karachi, Pakistan, left dozens dead, increasing concerns for the safety of the country's minority Shiite Muslims who have recently faced other deadly attacks in the Sunni-Muslim-majority country.

A recent study by the Pew Research Center indicates that acts of sectarian violence such as these occurred in more than 1-in-8 countries worldwide in the year ending in mid-2010, the latest year for which data are available, up from fewer than 1-in-10 just several years earlier (see table below).

Sectarian violence occurs in countries as diverse as Myanmar, where a deadly exodus of Muslim Rohingyas fleeing attacks is underway, to Nigeria, where Reuters reports that clashes last week between Christian and Muslim youths in the country's eastern Taraba state killed more than 15 people.

For more information on the rising tide of social hostilities involving religion and government restrictions on religion around the world, see the 2012 report by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Pew Research Center, "Rising Tide of Restrictions on Religion," September 2012

Recent events in Algeria, Burma, China, Egypt, Indonesia, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Syria - countries with very high government restrictions on religion - draw attention to a recent Pew Forum study that found social hostilities involving religion are substantially higher where national governments do not protect freedom of religion or belief. The study by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life found that social hostilities are 4.6 times higher when the national government does not protect religious freedom. (See chart below.)

It may be that social hostilities contribute to high government restrictions, and vice versa.*

ongoing unrest directed toward the Egyptian government led by President Mohamed Morsi (protesters reportedly accuse Morsi of "concentrating too much power in his own hands and those of his Muslim Brotherhood");

* As noted in previous Pew Forum studies on religious restrictions, higher scores on the Government Restrictions Index are associated with higher scores on the Social Hostilities Index and vice versa. This means that, in general, it is rare for countries that score high on one index to be low on the other.